Lot Fourteen
NEW WORLD WITH NEW OPPORTUNITIES
With construction work fast-tracked and new tenants moving in, Lot Fourteen remains at the epicentre of South Australia’s post-coronavirus recovery
With work not just continuing but also being fast-tracked during the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, Lot Fourteen remans a beacon of light for South Australians at a time of uncertainty.
The redevelopment of the old Royal Adelaide Hospital is currently home to more than 750 knowledge workers: 35 per cent focused on artificial intelligence and machine learning, 31 per cent on defence and space, and 20 per cent in digital technologies.
Already the site is sitting at 80 per cent of its current capacity – and there is more to come. “Once the refurbishment of the final heritage building, Bice Building, is completed in March, there will be about 1000 people at the precinct,” says Di Dixon, state project lead for Lot Fourteen. “And once the precinct is fully completed, we’ll have a target of about 6000 people, so it’s pretty rapid progress already.”
While COVID-19 has put a halt on many businesses and developments over recent months, at Lot Fourteen it has opened doors to new ways of thinking that are facilitating new ways of working and speedier results. “COVID gave us the opportunity to and new tenants moving in, Lot Fourteen remains at the epicentre of South Australia’s post-coronavirus recovery look at the ways we were planning on delivering some of the projects and what opportunities there are to maybe bring some of these forward as part of the recovery phase of the State Government,” Dixon says.
The next wave of developments, as part of the Adelaide City Deal include the Entrepreneur & Innovation Centre, (EIC), International Centre for Food, Hospitality & Tourism Studies and the Aboriginal Art & Cultures centre. The EIC will be an exciting new centrepiece. We’re talking about quite a significant build. That was due to start construction in 2022 but we’re aiming now for early in 2021. That’s been done by looking at how we can talk to the tenants we have already interested and sounding out developers and investors in terms of delivering projects. So we’re doing a lot of things in parallel that might have been done sequentially before, and the Government is providing a lot of support in terms of helping us to drive that forward a lot quicker.”
While renovation work remains ongoing, new tenants are flowing in to Lot Fourteen: recent additions include the Australian Space Agency, CSIRO Satellite Design Facility, SITAEL Australia and the Australian Cyber Collaboration Centre (A3C). The latter, a mission-driven not-for-profit with State Government funding of $8.9 million over four years, has pushed up representation of cyber security at Lot Fourteen to almost 7 per cent, helping to build the neighbourhood’s reputation as a centre for cybersecurity innovation and skills development when it opens its doors for business on July 1.
A3C has four missions: to offer full-spectrum cyber courses to increase the supply of skilled workers to the industry; assist enterprises in launching new cyber products and services to global markets; build cyber awareness and resilience in Australian corporates, small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) and government; and solve real-world cyber challenges through collaboration. “Cyber security is quite a confusing area for a lot of people, particularly SMEs who know the threat is out there but aren’t sure what to do to protect themselves,” says Kim Scott, chair of the A3C. “Fifty per cent of cyber attacks happen to SMEs, and about 40 per cent of those organisations will go out of business within six months.”
The timing of the A3C couldn’t be more relevant, with the news earlier this month that Australia had been the victim of a widespread cybersecurity attack by a foreign entity. “I often refer to cyber as the Achilles heel of the internet – it’s such an amazing thing that has opened up global connectivity for us all in so many different ways, but the problem is the criminals are going great,” says Geoff Rohrsheim, A3C board member. “You can’t ignore it, but the problem is businesses have been ignoring it.”
The issue, Scott says, is the common view that cyber security is an IT issue when, indeed, it should be everybody’s concern. To change that perception, the company will be running C-suite training to bring the reality of a cyber attack into the boardroom.
“CEOs, CFOs and CTOs often look at cyber as something the IT department has to deal with: they don’t look at it as a true business risk and they need to,” Scott says. “We’ll bring them into the cyber range, simulate an attack, show them what it looks like when data is exfiltrated and taken out of their organisation, and see how they respond to that: what do they do from an emergency response perspective, how do they deal with communicating to the public? We’ll have camera crews in there putting some pressure on them to explain what they’re going to tell their members about all the data they’ve lost. So it brings to reality the importance of cyber security within their own organisation.”
And it’s not just the CEOs who need to pay attention: new ways of working following the coronavirus lockdown are threatening the cyber security of every South Australian. “Because we’ve all been working from home, that’s opened another weakness in the network,”
Rohrsheim says. “When we’re at work, we have computers secured by the IT department but at home we’re on wi-fi, we could be on the kid’s laptop: that’s opened a whole new opening for cyber attackers to get into our organisations.”
As the number of attacks continues to grow, so does the need for more and more cyber security specialists to help keep our businesses – and our homes – safe. “Right now there is a shortage of 2000 cyber professionals in Australia and the anticipated shortage is 17,600 by 2026,” Scott says. “That’s a lot of lost opportunity if we can’t fill those positions and training is a key part of that.” That training will be offered through A3C’s cyber academy, a one-stop training portal to provide people new to cyber with the skillsets they need to launch a career as well as upskilling those already working in industry.
“People are confused by what training they need – universities offer training but they are degree courses,” Scott says. “A lot of people need to continue to have micro- credentialing and updating their experiences because the cyber threat is always changing. They need to continue to have small, short courses, and we’ll be delivering those through our partners and be able to bring the capability of our cyber professionals to the next level.”
Partnerships have already been established with South Australia’s universities as well as TAFE SA and international organisations including Mitre Corporation, University College of London and Carnegie Mellon University. “We’ll have a number of members delivering services and we’ll be the broker/facilitator of those capabilities to other members in industry or academia in both South Australia and Australia, and eventually we would look to provide those services in South-East Asia,” Scott says.
Being based at Lot Fourteen innovation neighbourhood Lot Fourteen is key to launching A3C on that national and international stage. “We see A3C being a large part of the ecosystem in South Australia and, when you see people moving into Lot Fourteen and the vision that has been delivered, we felt it was important for us to be part of that ecosystem,” Scott says.
Lot Fourteen’s ecosystem, says Dixon, will deliver “a real economic engine for South Australia” that will complement the state’s other innovation hubs at Tonsley and Technology Park, building connections with university and educational institutions to ensure a steady flow of new talent.
“We need to stay very specific to SA’s strengths in space, defence, artificial intelligence and machine learning, making sure we are linking those up with those core research skills across the universities and with the education element, so it’s a real pipeline opportunity,” she says.
“The idea is for students to be able to get internships and work with these companies; but it’s also an environment in which staff are already succeeding. Hopefully the next wave of development will bring global corporate companies in as well, so it really enables Adelaide to establish that engine of economic activity, right from skills development through to start-ups
Employment
NEW PATHWAYS TO EMPLOYMENT
With new businesses and start-ups moving into Lot Fourteen come new opportunities for employment, including work experience, mentoring and internships. Inovor Technologies, which offers specialist development services and satellite mission solutions, is just one company firmly investing in skills for the future.
Working across three of the South Australian Government’s priority growth sectors – space, defence and advanced technology – Inovor offers turnkey small satellite solutions, with everything fully designed and constructed here in SA.
“Usually people buy a whole lot of parts off the shelf and plug them together and make a satellite, but we do it an entirely different way, and there are a number of advantages to that,” Inovor CEO Dr Matt Tetlow says.
“We design and build our own subsystems and it’s the most modular system in the world – we can basically build different classes of spacecraft that range in size from a loaf of bread to a slab of beer, all with the same technology. We’ve decided the best way is to do it all yourself, to own it and understand how the systems work. If you develop it here in Australia you own the IP, you have complete control over the system and, most importantly, you use a local supply chain.”
That supply chain bolsters collaboration with other businesses based at Lot Fourteen, including Myriota, Neumann Space and SITAEL Australia. “We don’t stand on each other’s toes: we very much complement each other which makes it a great ecosystem and helps all of our businesses,” Dr Tetlow says.
As well as building relationships with local businesses, Inovor maintains close links with South Australian schools and universities to foster the next generation of talent. “Giving students opportunities is one of the main reasons we’re here,” Dr Tetlow says.
“We love being in SA and we want to grow that, and the only way you do that is by having an excellent team. Through the South Australian Space Industry Centre, we run a work experience program for schools, we run internship programs, and we have three second and third-year engineering students doing casual jobs. We’re fortunate we are in a very attractive sector so we have a lot of very smart people apply and we get the pick of the bunch. Kids in particular are very excited about space so there was a large number of applicants for the internship program.”
Former Adelaide University student Dan Schoell was one of four lucky applicants selected to do an internship with Inovor in late 2019; three months later, he was offered full-time employment and now works as a graduate mechanical and systems spacecraft engineer, spending his days designing and building satellites.
“The space sector is something I have always wanted to be a part of so the ability for me to get that within South Australia, so close to where I live and so soon after graduating, was a dream come true,” the 22-year-old says. “I do a bit of mechanical engineering as well as systems engineering and some project management roles, so I get a bit of spread within the company, which is a really great learning experience.”
SA HEALTH AWARDS
SA businesses have been doing it tough, with Government lockdowns and social distancing restrictions forcing some to close their doors and others to operate at reduced capacity. But their efforts haven’t gone unnoticed, which is why SA Health has announced the South Australian COVIDSafe Awards, designed to recognise SA businesses and defined public activities that have demonstrated innovation and compliance with COVID-19 directions.
There are seven award categories:
- Gyms and fitness
- Sport and recreation
- Cinemas, theatres and tourism operators
- Restaurants and cafes
- Pubs, hotels, clubs, wineries and breweries
- Personal care services
- Other (eg retail, churches, aged care)
To apply, businesses should submit a 300- word summary of how they have adhered to five COVIDSafe principles in the workplace:
- Reducing the potential spread of disease by reducing close contacts
- Reducing the likelihood that close contacts formed are sick
- Limiting contacts to people that know each other
- Reducing number of circumstances where close contacts can be created
- Reducing potential spread of disease through direct contact with bodily secretions on surfaces
As well as safety, innovation is also being recognised in the way businesses have had to make significant adjustments to protect the health of the public. SA Health lists four ways in which businesses/ organisations may have shown innovation during this time:
- Adapting to changes in the environment in order to deliver products or services
- Modifying business processes
- Adjusting marketing, which encompasses how products and services are promoted and the channels used to distribute them.
- Changing the business/ organisation model
Applications should be emailed to sahealthawards@sa.gov.au by July 5. For more information visit sahealth.sa.gov.au
or call 8226 6599
